WWUTT 1541 The Seal of Apostleship (1 Corinthians 9:1-2)

As an apostle of Jesus Christ, there was certain authority, rights, and privileges that Paul had. He could have exercised, but he gave those things up in service to the church. And so we should serve one another when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Hey, we finished a whole chapter of 1 Corinthians last week. That's the fastest we've gone through any section in this study of 1 Corinthians. So we're up to chapter 9 this week, a little bit longer chapter.

Paul’s Apostolic Credentials and the Seal of His Ministry

I'm going to begin by reading through the first 12 verses. This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?

Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. My defense to those who examine me is this. Do we not have authority to eat and drink?

Do we not have authority to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have authority to refrain from working?

Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not consume the fruit of it? Or who shepherds a flock and does not consume the milk of the flock? Am I speaking these things according to human judgment?

Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing. Is God merely concerned about oxen? Or is he speaking altogether for our sake?

Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

If others share this authority over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this authority, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Again, we're still talking about this question that Paul is responding to that started chapter 8.

This section is going to take us through the beginning of chapter 11. So chapters 8, 9, and 10 respond to things sacrificed to idols. This was chapter 8, verse 1, where Paul says, now concerning things sacrificed to idols and verse 4, therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols.

We know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no God but one. So an idol is nothing. Therefore eating something that's been sacrificed to this idol doesn't mean that the food you are eating is somehow inherently tainted and therefore you're consuming it.

And now, well, you're sinful. You've had sin put in you because you just ate food that had been sacrificed to an idol as though something spiritually impure had entered you. Paul goes on in verse 8 to say, food will not commend us to God.

We neither lack if we do not eat nor abound if we do eat. As Paul had said in Romans chapter 14, verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

So those are the things that we should be pursuing, not what we can have in this world, but rejoicing in what we have in Christ and growing in those things. Remember that Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things you need will be added to you as well.

Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness. Everything else, by the way, is idolatry. If you're not seeking first God, seeking first Christ and the righteousness of Christ, then what you're going after is something else.

You've exalted to the place of God something else, which is idolatry. Pastor Tom Buck is taking us through Jonah right now at First Baptist Church, and we're up to the point where Jonah has been swallowed by the big fish.

He is on a three-day pleasure cruise in the belly of a big fish. And from there, he prays a prayer of repentance unto the Lord, which is really multiple Psalms that we see in Jonah chapter two. It's in verse eight where we read the following.

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. So if you go after the things of this world, if you follow your own heart, well, you forsake the steadfast love of God. It's interesting to note that Jonah was not an idol worshiper.

He was being sent to tell Nineveh to repent. Well, he's running away from that responsibility, but this fish is about to vomit him onto dry land and then God's going to tell him, now do what I told you to do.

Go tell Nineveh to repent. The Ninevites were idol worshipers. Jonah was not. And yet he recognizes, even from the belly of the fish, that if he had gone his own way and God had let him go that course, he would have been worshiping an idol of his own.

The idol that he exalted in his heart into the place of God. Instead of doing what God had called him to do, Jonah was doing what he wanted to do. And as James says, friendship with the world is enmity with God.

Jonah going after worldly things instead of godly things. You can't have worldliness and godliness. These two things are opposed to one another. You cannot have a foot in the world and a foot in the kingdom of God.

You must be fully devoted to the one or the other. You are either in this world or you are in the kingdom, but you can't be both. You cannot dine at the table of the Lord and at the table of demons. Paul is going to bring all of this up as he's going through this answer here in 1 Corinthians 8 through 10.

But here in chapter 8, which we had just gone through, making sure the Corinthians understand an idol is nothing. There's nothing about an idol that has any godlike quality to it, though it may be a god, a little g that people are bowing down to.

There is one God. There's only God. Only the one who has created the cosmos. He is the only God. Paul says in verse 4, the food that we eat does not separate us from God, nor does it commend us to God.

But he says, this is at the end of chapter 8 verse 13, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again ever so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. Paul recognizes, Paul understands he's an apostle.

He is among the maturest of Christians on the earth. And yet he recognizes an idol is nothing. Food sacrifice to an idol is nothing. It doesn't commend me to God, nor am I condemned if I eat it. But if eating that food is going to cause my brother in the Lord who is weak in his conscience, if it's going to cause him to stumble, if he's going to believe that he's sinned before God by eating this food that had been sacrificed to a false god, then it would be better for me not to even eat it at all.

Because I want my brother to walk in holiness. That is my desire for my brother. If he believes even in his heart that he has sinned based on something that he's seen me do, I would rather not even do that thing.

So that's what Paul has concluded chapter 8 with saying. We get to the beginning of chapter 9 here with him saying, am I not free? So he has a freedom of conscience to eat whatever he wants. He knows no matter what he eats, even pork.

Yes, Paul does not have to abide by the dietary laws of the Levitical code. He knows that. He can eat pork and he is not a sinner for doing so. He knows that. And he says to the Corinthians, am I not free?

You are hearing me say this to you. It would be better for me to not eat it and cause my brother to stumble. Though Paul knows that he is a free man. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Again, the maturest of believers on the earth who are bringing forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also setting before the church is an example of a mature Christian.

That's the apostle Paul. He's free. His conscience is free. He knows what he may do and may not do. That is righteousness or sin before God. He is an apostle. He is one appointed by Christ to go into the nations preaching the gospel.

He says, have I not seen Jesus, our Lord? That's one of the requirements of an apostle, by the way. They had to have seen the risen Lord. Paul has not only seen the risen Christ who appeared to him on the road to Damascus, we read about in Acts chapter nine, but he also spent time with Christ himself at Mount Sinai.

He talks about that with the Galatians. For three years, he was with Jesus. Just as Moses conversed with the Lord face to face. So the apostle Paul had that experience as well. All of the apostles got to spend three years with Christ.

You realize that all of the appointed apostles were with Christ for three years. Whether you're talking about the 11 plus Matthias who replaced Judas, read about that in Acts chapter one, and then also the apostle Paul, he was with Christ during his earthly ministry for three years.

Now, some people would even throw in James as one of the apostles, the half brother of Jesus. Well, likewise, James was with Christ for even longer than three years. He was his half brother, was not a believer in Christ, though, for those three years of his earthly ministry.

And neither was Paul, though. Paul spent three years with Christ afterward when he went off to Arabia. James would have known Christ before Paul did. Of course, being in the flesh, he was a half brother of Jesus.

Anyway, so if you wanted to argue that James was an apostle, even he qualified on that particular ground. I'm not making that argument. I'm just kind of giving you an example. But Paul had said that he's seen Jesus, our Lord.

That is something that not every Christian has had the privilege of witnessing, even during this time. Again, Paul's writing in the first century. He's just writing in the first couple of decades of the church on the earth.

And he's saying, I've seen the risen Christ. None of the Corinthians have seen him. None of the Corinthians have seen the risen Lord. So Paul is saying or is witnessing to them of a maturity that he has that they do not have.

And yet he's saying, I'm willing to sacrifice on behalf of my brother. Are you willing to do that for the sake of my brother's conscience? I would be willing to give up what I have the freedom to enjoy.

Are you willing to give that up? Are you not my work in the Lord, Paul says. So, in other words, he has the authority to instruct them in these things as an apostle, as one who's seen the risen Lord, as one who has brought this church into existence, Christ working through him, the Holy Spirit through him to preach the gospel there in Corinth.

Many come to belief, come to faith in Jesus Christ in the church in Corinth is planted. That church that is there is a work of the apostle Paul in his apostleship. You are my work in the Lord, he says.

Verse two, if to others, I am not an apostle, at least I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. You are the evidence of the apostleship that I have been appointed to that office of apostle that Paul holds.

That's what he's saying there to the Corinthians later on in his next letter, Second Corinthians 1212. He says to them, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

He's giving a defense of his apostleship there, and he's saying, you know that I'm an apostle because the miraculous signs that can only be performed by an apostle were performed among you. Now, that's in his next letter, this one here.

He says, you know that I am an apostle because you were once pagans and you've been transformed to be followers of Jesus Christ. That's evidence of the apostolic message ministry that was brought to you through the Holy Spirit.

Through Paul preaching there in Corinth, and they were converted from that paganism to becoming followers of Christ as the apostles were appointed to go out into the world to do. So the very fact that you've been one from these things into Christ Jesus is evidence.

It's the seal of my apostleship. Remember who the Corinthians used to be. Paul mentioned this in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. He said, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. This is who you used to be. And by the Holy Spirit of God, working through Paul, through the gospel that was preached to them, they've gone from being these pagans who would not inherit the kingdom of God to becoming fellow heirs with Christ.

And this is the seal of Paul's apostleship. He says he uses that word seal there, which is interesting because whenever we see the word seal come up, like when Paul uses it with the Ephesians, for example, it's a sealing that happens by the Holy Spirit.

Consider Ephesians 1. I'm going to start in verse 11 here. In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him.

You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

So Paul making a reference here in first Corinthians. I'm still back in chapter six. Let me turn back to chapter nine here in first Corinthians nine to for him to say that he is the seal or sorry, the Corinthians are the seal of his apostleship is to show that the gospel is worked among you because this is the apostolic ministry.

And you see that I am an apostle. This is the seal of my apostleship that you've gone from your paganism into worshiping the true and only God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, by the spirit that has worked all of these things out to the praise of his glorious grace.

Now, that does not mean, though, when we share the gospel and a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ, when we talk about that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we all deserve the judgment of God.

But God sent a substitute, his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. He conquered death and rose again from the grave so that all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God. But we will have everlasting life when we preach that message to somebody and we say to them, so repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will live.

When we say that and they come to faith, that doesn't mean we've been apostles or we've become apostles. There's no seal of apostleship on us. What we are doing is sharing the message of that apostolic ministry that Jesus gave two apostles to go out into the world to preach.

And so there were many that came to faith and believed. And so many others that would go forth and continue to share that message would continue to share what it was that the apostles preached there at the beginning of the church.

In Hebrews two, beginning in verse three, it says that the message of the gospel was declared at first by the Lord. Jesus came preaching the gospel, right? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

It's not giftings that continue to this present day, but they were miracles that were given to the apostles that the message that they preached would be affirmed as coming from God. This isn't the message of a man, but it came from God.

Paul had said this to the Thessalonians as well. You know that the message that we preach to you came not from man, but it came from God. The signs of apostles were performed among them as well. And even to the Thessalonians, Paul said, the testimony of you has gone out into all the world, to Macedonia and to Achaia, how you had turned from idols to worship the true and living God.

And that even being a sign of apostleship for Paul had said to the Thessalonians in first Thessalonians two, 19, for what is our joy or crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?

And Paul had said also to the Philippians Philippians four, one, therefore, my brothers whom I love and long for my joy and crown stand firm. Thus in the Lord, my beloved Paul's reward as an apostle were those Christians who came to faith because of him risking his life that they might hear the gospel of Christ and come to believe in Jesus.

And so live, be saved from the judgment of God and live with Christ forever in glory. That was Paul's reward that he might present them before Christ on that day. He says that to the Corinthians, to the Thessalonians and to the Philippians, the crown that we receive in glory, we read about receiving a crown when we enter the kingdom of God, as we reign with him, we likewise have crowns on our heads.

But the 24 elders that are seated around the throne, what do they do with their crowns? They cast them down, right? We sing about it in holy, holy, holy, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy seat.

The reward that Christ gives to us is something that we might offer to God in praise because it all belongs to the praise of his glorious grace anyway. So Paul praises God for these believers who have come to faith.

They are indeed children of the apostle Paul. He's talked about that previously with the Corinthians. I've become like a father to you. You are my spiritual children, but so that he might present them before the Lord as though to say, God, I was faithful with those that you gave to me.

Here they are. They are yours. This is to your glory. And it is to Paul's reward that he might see them through to the end, that they become inheritors of the kingdom of God. So once again, he says here to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 9, verses one and two, am I not free?

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others, I am not an apostle, at least I am to you for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. And why does Paul say this to the Corinthians?

Not because he is trying to Lord himself over them, but to give them an example. I have sacrificed my rights and privileges for you, for your benefit. And to also set before them an example to follow that they may serve each other and love one another.

Love, Sacrifice, and the Conscience of a Brother

And that's really where Paul is going with this. He's going to call them to sacrifice, to love each other as Christ sacrificed himself for us, demonstrating his love for us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And it's in light of this gospel truth that we love one another as God has loved us. Heavenly father, thank you for this good word today. And may we show the love of Christ to each other, especially to a dark and dying world desperately in need of the gospel.

What's the first way that we can love those who do not know Christ by sharing with them the gospel of Jesus Christ for without it, they will perish under the judgment of God. May we love the world in such a way to hold out the truth, the gospel, the good news that Jesus has died for our sins, that he has conquered death and we will not perish under the judgment of God.

If we put our faith and our trust in him, let us show love to one another in the body of Christ, not using our Liberty as a cause for sin, but to even consider the conscience of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we may build each other up in Christ.

As we continue this walk of sanctification, this pursuit of holiness in these days, lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.